Published June 12, 2005 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
I’ve been so busy with diaper changes and squeezing tiny socks onto the kicking feet of our new son that I completely missed the opportunity to write about the recent big “Deep Throat” revelation. Indulge me, if you will.
(And I acknowledge that with those two words, “Deep Throat,” I’ve driven away 90 percent of my non-journalist audience and attracted a whole new group who think I’m going to write about something else entirely. I’m afraid some will be disappointed.)
In the context of this column and the news of the past few weeks, Deep Throat is the secret source that provided information to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about the Watergate break-in that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974. Late last month, former deputy FBI director Mark Felt revealed that he was the anonymous source that helped the Washington Post reporters.
This is a big deal to me because the book and movie “All the President’s Men” (based on Woodward and Bernstein) was one of the reasons I got into journalism. Deep Throat was described and shown as the shadowy person who guided the reporters to the truth about the Nixon White House. If you’ve seen the movie version of “All the President’s Men,” starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, you know that the reporters are portrayed as crusaders seeking information against the longest of odds. One of my college journalism instructors used to show the movie to rev up his freshman classes.
I never really had a “Woodward and Bernstein” journalism experience. Most of my newspaper work is done right here in Hibbing. Meeting someone in an underground parking lot here is not an option, because I think the closest one is in Duluth. Using a potted plant as a signal to have a covert meeting doesn’t work well either, because someone passing by will likely comment, “Why you moving that there plant, young man? That plant looks fine where it is. You young people are all alike, movin’ plants when they been there since I was just a boy, and that was during the Depression.” The same person would likely know my name and family history, so I’d have to can the secret meeting.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met plenty of paranoid people who want to remain anonymous around here; they just don’t have the power and inside knowledge that Felt had as Deep Throat. One “source” showed up at the newspaper office a few years ago with a six-foot crucifix tied to his back, which was striking but did not open many journalistic doors for me.
The role of anonymous sources in journalism is now in question. Recently, CBS News and Newsweek magazine received flak for using anonymous sources. It is interesting that the stories ran by these organizations (CBS’s report was about President Bush’s sketchy National Guard service during the Vietnam War; Newsweek ran a story mentioning the desecration of the Muslim Koran in U.S. military prisons) would have been most damaging to the current White House. Though facts printed in the stories were later denied, the “controversy” over the stories overshadowed the ultimately valid concerns, such as actually documented prison abuse, poor relations with the Muslim world and George W. Bush’s “missing year” back in the ‘70s.
These modern sources were just as anonymous as Felt was when he provided information to Woodward and Bernstein, but if Felt had not done so who knows what would have resulted from the Nixon White House’s push for unmitigated power. I only hope young people today see the news and build up the courage to ask questions, rather than accept the official line to everything.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.